A Hamlet Called Inception
by Tharhi
Summary: Corelings may control the night, but there are those unwilling to sit by and do nothing.
1. Eames

History is ordered and understood by the Ages. In the beginning, there was the Age of Ignorance. A time when demons were few and men arrogant. The two forces went about their lives separately until, unknown to man, demons amassed a great army and attacked.

Driven by necessity and discovered by accident, warding brought an end to the Age of Ignorance. It allowed protection from demons and ushered in the Age of the Deliverer. A man sent by the creator to not only protect, but fight back against demons. The Deliverer brought with him attacking wards that allowed men to take back the night.

So powerful were these wards that they drove the demons back into the core. A time came when no demon rose with the setting of the sun. This allowed the Age of Science to flourish. As men populated the earth, unhindered by demons, he grew jealous of his fellow man and nations rose and fell and fought against each other.

For 3,000 years, the demons slumbered. So long were demons gone that they became nothing more than myth and wards nothing more than a forgotten art.

The Age of Destruction lasted less than a year. The demons returned and in a single night, nations were annihilated. Vast resources of knowledge gone with the sun. Some thought it the end of humans entirely.

They were now in the fifth age. Unnamed. Some called it the Age of the End, believing humans were going to slowly dwindle to nothing. Others called it the Age of the Return, believing that they only need hold out until the Deliverer was reborn.

Eames didn't care what the fucking age was.

_Eames glanced around the table, then took another long look at his hand. For the last three nights he'd been playing with nothing. Today, they demanded he either win big or cough up what he lost._

He just wanted to live.

"_Cards on the table," the bartender, also acting dealer, called. There were grunts and sighs as cards hit the table. Eames looked up with a grin, reluctant to reveal his cards but knowing he had to act fast. _

Make a little money maybe.

_His cards hit the table and he was halfway to the door, turning to observe reactions. Smirking at the confusion, he couldn't help but shout, "Ah lovelies, I really must be going-"_

He had tried the straight and narrow path.

Grew up in Fort Angiers, apprenticed to a Warder, got himself a girl. Eames made himself a name and earned a pretty little shop he worked by himself. His niche was warding houses so deep inside the walls as to never be tested.

_Eames stopped as he backed up into the solid wall of Jenki, the local giant. He turned and ducked fast enough to escape, but any chance to retrieve his goods – on his horse across town in the stables – just vaporized. Already shouts were breaking out from the tavern._

He had the instinctive knack for warding others could only be jealous of. No need for a straightstick or equations – a glance and he could point out the holes in your wardnet.

_He didn't waste the time it'd take to reassure he had his light bag of essentials. When the adrenaline calmed he'd likely feel it bouncing against his back anyway. Rather, he sprinted for the edge of town. If he made it far enough out, no one would even bother to chase him._

But it was so boring, and it didn't matter anyway.

So he took a couple shortcuts. Left out a ward here, didn't bother to correct for a corner there.

_He ran for an hour straight, stopping only when he started having trouble breathing. The sky was starting to darken and shadows grow when the realization that he had no protection and no one to ask succor from hit._

You see, warding is a precise science.

_Panic rose as he grabbed his bag. A warding kit, a spare set of clothes, a sparker, a blanket and lunch he had forgotten to eat. He didn't even think when he flattened the blanket out and began drawing._

For all science earned itself a dirty name when it helped the art of warding fade, there was a reason for the equations and straightsticks. A reason it became a profession rather than a household skill.

_It had always been a theory of his. Warding on more loose and unstable surfaces. It had gotten him laughed at and lost him jobs. Besides, who wanted to test something like that personally?_

If a wardnet wasn't established properly, corelings could break them or escape through them. People died.

And when the Warding Guild in Fort Angiers learned the failed warding was due to Eames shoddy work he had barely enough warning to leave before they strung him up.

_Eames finished and looked up to see the last sliver of sun disappearing. Corelings began to materialize and there was nothing else to do but lay flat and wrap the blanket around himself._

For all his skill, warding took time and precision. Gambling, on the other hand, was much easier.

He just had to be careful when they caught on to his cheating.

_The warmth of the sun woke him._


	2. Arthur

There seemed, at times, to be only two types of men. Those who feared the night, and those who died in it.

Most men feared it, huddling behind wards and flinching every time they were tested. Even messengers, daring to travel beyond the safe walls of the Free Cities, sat behind their wards waiting for the night they misplaced one.

Very few dared to challenge the night. Those of Krasia were spoken of with derision the rest of the world over. They boasted of killing corelings, but in Arthur's experience, they killed a miniscule amount and died. For every dead coreling, there was a house whose wards failed.

There were messengers who started goading corelings. Their answer to fear was to become obsessed with the demons instead, shouting at them and stabbing with their long spears. Ultimately, they died. Faster and messier.

_Arthur strung the bow as the sun started to dip into the horizon. The sky was clear of clouds, meaning the corelings would be rising late tonight._

Some would say Arthur was the second type of man. Obsessed and doomed to die.

_He knelt down and picked up the quiver of arrows. Remaining on one knee, he picked up his moleskin and an arrow. Checking the wards on the arrow, he recorded it on the moleskin then stood and set the arrow to the string._

Arthur preferred to see himself as determined. He was cautious of the night, but unafraid. He also lacked the obsession with getting revenge on the corelings which doomed so many others. He just wanted to kill them. Not at the cost of his own life, but he wouldn't let them rule his life either.

Arthur had fought hard to gain his freedom.

_The last light from the sun faded as the corelings solidified. The fire at his back provided enough light to aim and he let the arrow fly. It hit a wood demon only to bounce off, the ward carved into the arrow doing nothing._

His entire village had been destroyed by corelings when he was seven. Arthur had been found three days later at the gate of Fort Miln. He never spoke of his experience and for many, it was too fantastical to be true.

_Arthur knelt and recorded the lack of response in his notebook. The process started over as he chose a new arrow._

Taken in by a warder, Arthur hadn't understood at the time how they were destroying his life. He was no merchant or free man, but servant class. Left to run errands, clean, cook, and do the unwanted chores. No upward mobility. No hope to support himself. He was wholly dependant on his master.

But Arthur was no one's fool. He watched the lessons as he swept, taught himself to read by struggling out the words, and taught himself wards the same way.

_He had ten arrows, each with their own warding. Two of them he warded himself with experimental designs. The rest were by Dominick. None of them worked. Without sign of frustration he unstrung his bow and settled beside the fire, going over his notebook again._

In three years time, he disappeared as easily as he appeared. Walked out those gates during the day without a look back. He made it to a settlement before night, gaining succor.

He stumbled upon a messenger and followed the man after he refused to take Arthur with. When night came, the man grumbled but forced Arthur into his warding circle.

After a couple small villages they ran across another messenger. She was going South and Arthur hitched a ride with her. Then there was another messenger, and another, and another until Arthur not only gained a name for himself, but his own pack of supplies and knowledge of every messenger and their routes.

_Why wouldn't his arrows work? Arthur frowned and stared out at the corelings growling and spitting outside his warding circle. There had to be some way to turn the defensive wards offensive. Legends were rich with it and messengers poor from searching ruins in hope of it._

Once old enough, Arthur took up cart himself, traveling as he willed and working off a barter system the smaller villages struggling to survive preferred. He traded goods between villages, choosing the lack of money over entering a Free City.

Most messengers carried letters and goods were only for pure profit. Profit they used to take weeks off to explore ruins. Arthur, contrary to the lot, took weeks off to follow small roads no one knew where they led anymore.

He met Dominick because of it.

_Arthur pulled free a normal arrow. He considered the arrow carefully, fingers running along the shaft where he would carve the wards, fingertip resting on the arrowhead, a thumb brushing the fletching. _

Dominick was a master warder who, with his messenger wife Mallorie, set off in search of ruins once. They never returned and were assumed dead.

They weren't.

Rather, they built themselves a home in the middle of nowhere and worked on creating wards together.

_Arthur froze, staring down at the arrowhead his finger had idly tested. All the warding had gone along the shaft as in the old stories, but he didn't have the old offensive wards. He and Dominick were making due with untested and hopeful wards and as the arrowhead is what came into contact with the corelings then perhaps…_

They had been startled when Arthur stumbled upon them, but took him in with large smiles and non-stop questions. Arthur had reacted worse than they. He had found abandoned villages and even populated villages out in the middle of nowhere, struggling together to survive. But just two people?

But then they shared their passion and Arthur stopped caring. This was it. This was why he followed trails rather than maps to ruins.

_Normally calm fingers trembled as Arthur reached into his pack for his warding kit. He forced a breath, calming before bending over the arrow to paint the smallest ward he's ever drawn onto the arrowhead. He stood, quickly and easily restringing his bow and aiming his arrow._

The future wasn't to be found in the past. They wouldn't survive the night by depending on ancestors long dead.

No.

_Arthur released the arrow. It flew true and struck a stone demon. Yet rather than bouncing off, the arrow warded for piercing stuck, sticking out from the middle of an armored scale._

They would make their own future.

_A fierce grin stole across Arthur's face._


	3. Ariadne

In Fort Miln women could be only three things: a herb gatherer, a wife, or a Mother.

Herb gatherers ruled the sick houses, soothing pains and aches with potion and solutions. In the hamlets, a herb gatherer might gain enough power to unofficially rule, but in the big cities their power was more narrow. Inside their house, not even the Duke could steal control, but leave their doorstep and they were just another citizen.

Being a wife wasn't really a choice, it was an expectation. But some women chose well, not just in their husbands wallet, but in his will. He may be the store owner or the guildleader, but she would be the one making decisions. It required a skill for devious actions.

The last choice was one coveted by all. To be a Mother. Mothers were the only ones aside from royal blood allowed into politics. It was to a council of Mothers that the Duke turned for advice and wisdom. It has been said that Fort Miln was run by the strength of its Mothers.

If a women was not a Mother, than she had no worth. A women's job, according to Fort Miln, was to carry children so that humans could survive another generation. A women's job was softness, and warmth, and care.

A warders job was harsh and cold, with long hours of study and a hand that had to be steady. It was skill with no room for error and tradition hundreds of years long.

"_Ariadne!"_

For many, being a warder meant safety. And if you could pay a high enough apprentice fee for the right master, it might even pay out with wealth.

_The door to her study slammed opened to reveal a large huffing man, red in the face. "What's this I hear about you changing the wards again?"_

All it took was being able to follow instructions.

To have the memory to follow each ward exactly.

"_I was getting paid to protect," Ariadne said, unbothered by the shouting. Before her on the table was a grimoire of wards, a straight stick, and a slate with chalk. "Besides, I really wasn't changing the wards so much as making them more efficient."_

That experimentation was forbidden was an unwritten rule.

"_And how did you know them to be more efficient?" He stepped inside the room, hoping his size could succeed in intimidating where his yelling had not._

There were some few who could simply see a wardnet. Who could read wards like one might read the weather. They had no need for straight sticks and were exceedingly rare.

The last such that Fort Miln had seen was a couple. Mal and Dom. So talented were they, so lost in their work, that they allowed their children to die when disease swept through the town. They disappeared into the night, never heard from again.

_Ariadne stood, slamming her chair back and gaining a bit of color herself. She stared her teacher down._

But Ariadne possessed no such talent. Her skill was gained by long hours studying. By learning the formulas and practice. By hand made models left out in the night with nothing but a slightly modified ward for protection.

_He turned away, shamed. She had spent countless hours on the wall, notes in hand while he got drunk in the corner of his shop. He might have been a famous warder once, but a single trip as a messenger had broken him._

She didn't make new wards, but she stretched known wards to their limit and many would say, beyond their limit.

_Her teacher paused in the doorway, but refused to look at her, "I have a package for Miles. You're to stay and help him with anything he needs for the rest of the day." A lengthy pause, but he does not leave. Finally, he adds, "And I'm not going to hear of any changes again. Else I'll find a new apprentice."_

No boy would ever accept her as wife, she knew, because no boy was willing to approach her. Everyone knew she who she was, the strange girl on the wall.

Her parents would badger her every time she came to sit a meal with them, disapproval thick.

_It took several deep breaths before her own anger faded. She was a better warder than her master and the only reason he had the money to drink his life away. But his habit was the only reason she had an apprenticeship and access to his grimoire._

And it never bothered her, because she was doing what she loved.

_They didn't look at each other as Ariadne walked past. The package was left in the open along her path to the door._

At least, most days.

_Ariadne walked into Miles shop with only a little apprehension. He encouraged her in the profession, but he discouraged everything she loved doing with it. _

The days her teacher was drunk enough to not notice the world around him.

_A strange man turned upon her entrance. His clothes were well taken care of, but of strange style. A warder then. Miles looked around him with a smile, "Ah Ariadne, we were just discussing you."_

The nights when the guards left her well enough alone to study the corelings and her small warded models.

_Ariadne tried to smile as Miles walked around his friend, continuing, "This is my dear friend Arthur. He's kind of a messenger, but he doesn't report to a guild or free city. Why, back in the day I found him in the middle of the road, dark approaching, demanding that I teach him the ropes."_

A part of her considered leaving. Her skills of a warder were enough to protect herself against the corelings.

But there were other dangers on the road.

"_Well, I have a package here for you. And I'm supposed to help you with whatever you need today. Nice to meet you Arthur, I suppose." She handed over the package and headed towards the back, where Miles would usually let her practice with his grimoire._

Men little better than corelings, preying on the weaker.

Desperate villagers willing to do anything to make it through a night.

A need for coin. Supplies for bartering. Material worth.

"_I've heard you like to experiment," Arthur said, "I have an offer for you, if you're curious."_

It's not that Ariadne was afraid, or didn't want to. It was that she was too practical to kill herself.

_Ariadne stopped. "An offer?"_

She could make herself a life here.

"_I have some friends. Warders. I supply them with goods I buy from my profit, and they supply me with newly created wards." When she turns back to face him, Arthur is watching her._

But she can't keep herself from dreaming of somewhere else.

"_When do we leave?"_


End file.
